Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 346
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story, I Still Have to Go to Work Episode 346
I lie buried beneath the collapsed concrete, listening to the voices coming from outside.
I tried to move my mouth, but no sound came out.
Just hazy and dull, into my head, the voices flow in…
The voices of Segwang City Disaster Management Bureau Agents, marked by deep fatigue and bewilderment.
“We’ve stopped the additional collapse for now. …Over the radio, we’ll also focus more on rescue than termination from now on…”
“There are also citizens in the waiting room… …like this, too many have died…”
“What should we do, Team Manager? The selection criteria…”
The voices gradually grow distant…
‘Ah.’
There’s no time to save the person buried here. I understood the situation very slowly.
The sound of the agents moving away from the collapsed concrete pile spreads as vibrations through the cold floor rebar touching my cheek…
“Agents.”
Then, a familiar voice rang out.
The counseling teacher’s voice.
That heavily hoarse and cracked voice sounded low and blocked, as if trapped in concrete like me…
“Inside here, there’s an agent…”
“…!!”
“Down there, there is one.”
A brief commotion seemed to arise among the agents, then they appeared to approach closer.
“Who are you?”
“I’m… I’m a counselor at Segwang High School.”
“Ah!”
As if recognizing the identity from those words, hurried approaching footsteps could be heard. And noise that sounded like clearing concrete and rebar debris rang out.
With that movement, the structural fragments stuck in my back collapsed further to the side. I dully sensed the pain spreading through my body…
I couldn’t move.
“Wait.”
A calm voice is heard.
“…How did someone like you end up buried down there?”
“Yes…? I’m… just a counselor…”
“…”
A thick silence settled. The sound of clearing debris continued through it, but…
“Something’s strange, fall back.”
“Just a moment. If I just clear this… gasp!”
“…!!”
“Wa, wait.”
Finally, the sound of dropping the heavy debris they had lifted, the sound of drawing in breath.
As if they had witnessed something completely unexpected.
“The appearance…”
“It must be contamination. Stay back.”
Footstep sounds, equipment clashing sounds, friction noises ring out…
“No, cough, it’s not… contamination.”
Now exposed to the outside, the counseling teacher’s voice was no longer blocked.
“Don’t worry…”
However, it’s powerlessly hoarse and sunken.
“…’Counselor.’ Are you aware of what state you’re in?”
“Yes. I’m… fine. But, down there, below…”
It sounds desperate.
“There’s an agent who carried me out on their back…”
“…”
“They have special… abilities. Surely, they’ll be helpful… So,”
Silence flowed.
None of the agents answered.
“…Agents?”
“What is that agent’s agent name?”
“I… haven’t heard it yet.”
“…Then what about their affiliation? You should be able to tell from looking at the jacket.”
“…”
Slowly, an answer comes.
“The jacket is… here. They gave it to me… They’re not… wearing it.”
“…”
“…”
“Isn’t this your jacket?”
“It looks… that way. But actually it’s… not…”
“…”
“…”
“Understood.”
“Agent…?”
The sound of agents withdrawing can be heard.
The sound of them talking quietly among themselves also reaches my ears through the collapsed concrete…
“We can’t spend any more time. …Move out.”
“But…!”
“The circumstances don’t add up. That spirit is already not normal. Even if we rescue them, it’ll be hard to receive help. Already…”
“…St, still, even if they’re not an agent, there’s a person down there… they’ll die soon…!”
“Agent!”
The sound of grabbing a shoulder.
“Right now, there are probably hundreds of thousands of people dying in this city.”
“…”
“But you want to spend more time for just one person whose survival is uncertain? If we make exceptions to the rules, what happens to the other citizens we couldn’t save?”
“…That,”
“Go. Before other citizens come!”
But then.
“Those words…”
The slow voice of the counseling teacher is heard.
“Sound too familiar.”
“…”
“I feel like… I’ve heard them before.”
I swallowed my breath.
“What?”
“Don’t answer.”
“So, yesterday…?”
…
“No… the day before yesterday too, so, before that too, before that before that too, before that before that before that before that…”
“Wa, wait.”
“Fall back!”
Even in the commotion outside, even in my already confused mind, I listened to that sound as if gripped by the counseling teacher’s voice.
‘That’s…’
Because I noticed it was eerily similar…
…to my appearance not long ago.
‘They’ve become aware.’
The sensation I felt when I regained consciousness within the 613th May 4th.
The counseling teacher was voicing that very feeling.
“But the situation was different, so, so… I burned to death.”
“Get back!”
“I think I burned while gripping the door handle… Right. I burned to death. I called for help from the agents while burning in that machine room. I couldn’t get out because collapsed concrete was blocking the door…”
“And you all just left.”
“I thought it couldn’t be helped. I held no resentment. Saving citizens comes first… But, but.”
“…”
“Just how many times… are you saving citizens? Why does the same thing keep happening?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t listen.”
“Why does it keep… repeating… this is… this is strange, cough, huh? I’m trapped…”
“Damn it.”
Urgent footsteps echo.
“Get away! Seal the platform. Seolpi, the talisman!”
“That’s…”
“Seal?”
In that moment.
The atmosphere sinks eerily and chillingly.
“Right. That was it. …Sealing.”
…!
I hear words muttered as if entranced.
“After I burned to death in there, I escaped through the door and remained on the platform. Because that’s what I became. And for four days, trapped and listening to the sounds of citizens committing suicide, I desperately tried to reach the surface, the outside. Thinking I would beg anyone, somehow, to help this city… But.”
…
“They started performing a strange gut ritual.”
My heart tightens.
“Looking closely, it was a sacrifice ritual. I wondered what sacrifice they were offering to stop this situation, what sacrifice they were making and what price they were paying to save my clients. I was anxious yet filled with ecstasy, eagerly awaiting its completion…”
“The sacrifices were my clients.”
“They offered countless people living in this city on the ritual ground. No, not just people, but every living thing down to a single blade of grass on the surface was scraped together. And then, and then…”
…
“May 4th started again.”
I noticed a flash of realization piercing through my dull mind.
‘Ah.’
The repeating day… wasn’t part of the extinction-level supernatural disaster.
‘It was… part of the sealing ritual…’
If so, there were probably two reasons why the day repeated…
To prevent contagion.
And…
To continuously revive and supply living sacrifices to maintain the seal.
Segwang Special City was like a self-generating facility, offering itself as sacrifice daily to maintain the city’s seal…
Trapped in May 4th.
‘Ah.’
A chilling coldness settles in my body.
It probably wasn’t because blood had drained out.
“Like that,”
…
“My clients, and everyone living in this Gwangjin…”
The counseling teacher’s voice echoes hollowly through the platform.
…I could no longer hear the agents’ voices.
Having apparently blocked the collapsed platform with talismans and such, all the screams, noise, and voices I’d been hearing were silenced as if a switch had been turned off.
It became quiet.
But.
A strange energy bubbling up settles down.
‘…No.’
I lifted my head with difficulty.
“They’ll die miserably every day. I’ll keep watching that while burning to death. They threw these hundreds of thousands, millions of lives as bait instead of rescuing them. You deceived me with honeyed words, sweet words on your tongues, and me…”
Thud.
I banged my head.
“…!”
Thud thud…
“Agent…”
I suddenly stopped banging my head against the concrete.
I had no strength, power, or anything left to move…
“Wait, just wait…”
Soon, I felt trembling movement as someone moved alone.
Hands clearing the debris above me.
It took a very long and difficult time.
The signs of barely managing to move heavy objects, those movements that seemed about to give up but continued without breaking…
Whoosh.
Finally, the heavy cement chunk pressing down on my head disappeared.
Light poured in, but…
I couldn’t see anything.
“…”
Perhaps I’d injured my head badly.
However, I felt someone moving their hand over my dazed mind, patting my head.
“It’s okay, it’ll be okay…”
With one remaining hand, stroking my head as if comforting someone in pain.
Drip, drip. The sensation of hot liquid drops like blood falling on my forehead echoes in my head…
“…Did you come from outside to help me?”
I barely managed to wiggle my fingers.
“Thank you…”
“…”
“This city has been abandoned. I, far from protecting this place… am just a fox being offered as a ritual offering alongside everyone else.”
I hear whispers trembling with anger and despair.
Splash.
A collapsing sound occurs.
No.
‘I need to speak… as a counselor.’
I barely managed to raise my arm and tap the other person.
“Ah! Ah…”
“…”
“Don’t worry.”
They try to slightly support my upper body and lift it onto their legs.
“Still, you will get out.”
…
…What, did they say?
“People from outside have a way to return. It’s okay if you can’t move. I’ll push you… by attaching a small fox. So you can slip out through the back door of the counseling room, just like that.”
Splash.
“Because a counselor can see off clients who have finished their counseling.”
Laughter.
“Of course, an ordinary counselor couldn’t do it, right? Haha…”
Splash.
The sensation of the hand on my head disappears.
The feeling of something melting and flowing down, running down my cheek to the floor below and vanishing.
Now only a voice can be heard from the air.
The faint voice of the Counseling Teacher.
“Before your breath is cut off and you’re placed on the sacrificial ritual ground, before you’re trapped in this May April… I’ll send you back to where you originally belonged, to your workplace.”
Click.
The sound of a door handle being pulled can be heard.
And immediately after, the sensation of the floor supporting my back disappeared. As if a door had opened behind it.
My body falls into it.
To the opposite side of the door the counselor opened for me.
“Farewell.”
I felt the sensation of a small furry animal’s paws wrapping around my waist as we fell together into the air…
…
“Please return safely. My client.”
That was the last thing.
* * *
‘…Ah.’
I slowly regained consciousness.
The pain throughout my body had disappeared like a lie, but there was a strangely sunken feeling in my heart.
‘I see… so that’s how it was.’
The newly discovered facts filled my head.
Joyful Research Institute, the identity of the disaster, the sealing ritual…
Ho Yu-won.
‘…’
In the final moment, Ho Yu-won seemed to have almost lost his form and collapsed.
Was it because he tried to use some spiritual or evil power in his true form, rather than his safe identity as a ‘counselor’, to send me out…?
I thought about the sensation of the small fox that should still be clinging to my waist, but that feeling had already disappeared.
‘…Let’s get up.’
This wasn’t the time to be lost in thought.
I had gotten out, but I didn’t know what had happened to the other three people… yes, Manager Lee Ja-heon, Deputy Manager, and the Agent.
‘I hope Manager led the two of them out safely.’
I hoped we had all awakened outside together.
‘Let’s hurry and open my eyes.’
Then the fake sunlight of the Fox Counseling Room would pour down to welcome me. I exhaled and looked straight ahead…
“Ah, you’ve regained awareness.”
…
I looked straight ahead.
I saw a concrete wall.
It was the wall of the security containment room in Daydream Underground.
And with that wall as a backdrop, I saw a Director looking at me with a joyful smile.
“130666.”
It was Director Cheong Dal-rae.
“…!!”
What is this, what, what is this…
-I’ll send you back to your workplace.
Wait.
Wait a minute…!
No, no…
“You’ve finally returned. You’ve been absent from work for quite a while.”
In the shock that felt like all the blood was draining from my body, I stepped back, no, no…
“And you’re in quite a weakened state. You’ve even lost your body.”
The Director waves her hand.
My contract is in that hand, wait.
“Hmm, it would be better to return to how you looked when we made our contract. For work purposes.”
My form is melting away, no.
It’s not melting, it’s not melting! I’m human! I have to endure, endure…
“You shouldn’t endure it. You need to return to your original form to easily dwell in the Security Team suit. Since you have no physical body, you can use the suit as your body to operate.”
I don’t want to.
I don’t…
“Now.”
I have to get up and look for the Security Team suit, no, I refuse…
“Refuse? That’s a bit different from the contract terms.”
130666 is working on Director Ho’s project! Since I’m working on the project, I should prioritize the work there…
“Oh dear, there’s no longer a place for you in that project.”
…
What?
“Director Ho started selecting and operating other Team Members for his project last year.”
…Last year?
Then how much time has actually passed…
“He said that you and several Team Members were being deployed on long-term missions and wouldn’t be operated in the project for now…”
Director Cheong Dal-rae looks at me.
The one who readily killed hundreds of thousands, burned down the research institute, and brought the dream incubator… clearly dangerous, overwhelmingly violent.
A being who thinks only of her own interests.
A malice that’s frightening because it’s understandable joyfully peers into me.
“There must have been other circumstances, right?”
…
“I can feel your fear.”
A pleasant voice can be heard.
“How about it. Did you find something interesting in the Special City? About me?”
…!!
“Then you must have learned that I don’t do things that put me at a loss. The same goes for you.”
…
“Now, get up. And put on the security uniform.”
I stood up.
No, I realized that I had no body.
I was… the mind of something bodiless that had infiltrated Segwang Special City as a dream and escaped…
“I’ll have to take it out myself.”
I move forward. I head toward the cabinet in the concrete wall…
I tried to pass through the wall and shoot out into the corridor.
“Oh my, did you think you could do that without a physical body?”
Ah.
“The walls of the Security Zone conceptually isolate the status of those inside the zone from the outside. Otherwise, how could we isolate supernatural phenomena?”
…
“Unless someone takes you out, there’s no other way.”
I turned to look at the Director.
“It was an intelligent but unfortunate attempt. I’ll have to give you disciplinary action once you’re properly equipped with the security uniform. How about killing a child?”
Please.
…Unable to do anything, I approached the cabinet.
The hand opening the cabinet door trembles. The bizarre Security Team Employee 130666, who exerted physical force without a body, stuck his head into that cabinet and…
…
I heard the sound of a bell.
-Found you.
I was pulled into the cabinet.
An enormous pressure wrapped around me and pulled me upward as if extracting me, finally tearing me away from Daydream’s security zone.
Alarms blare from behind.
But already in an instant, I was transported like prey caught by the scruff of the neck by something massive.
Somewhere.
“Grape.”
“…”
“Grape,”
I opened my eyes.
I turned my head to look at my arm.
It’s there.
I looked at my hand.
It’s there.
It moves.
I am… in a human body…
“…”
But just now, just now…!
“Huff, hufff…!”
“It’s okay.”
I gasped for breath, trying to calm myself in rhythm with the sensation of someone patting my back. Breathing, breathing…
“It’s all over. You’re safe…”
I steady myself.
“…”
“Grape.”
I raised my head.
…Agent Choi.
That Genbu Team 1 agent with a pale face smiled weakly and set aside the ritual bell he held in his hand.
Blood splattered from the bell.
I heard a trembling voice.
“Good to see you. …It’s been 293 days.”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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